The report, from the National Academy of Sciences, found that the impacts of melting ice and warming, expanding oceans will hit California harder because most of the state’s coastline is slowly sinking due to geological forces.

Ocean levels south of Humboldt County will rise up to 1 foot in the next 20 years, 2 feet by 2050, and up to 5 feet by 2100, the study showed.

San Francisco Bay already has risen about 7 inches in the past 100 years, as measured by the tidal gauge at Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge.

her ya’ go, Thorstein.
Anyseismic “advantages” for this specific area will most certainly be diminished by the hot air generated from Rose, Darth Finance, Owens, Bass, Bohn, Brooks,Ulansey and the rest from Sunshine For Humboldt.

4 inches of sea level rise by 2030 ia bad enough. But what really caught my attention was this little nuggert, from further down in the AP article:

“If a major earthquake occurs beneath the Pacific Ocean off Oregon and Washington, in what is known as the Cascadia subduction zone, that would cause the land to drop, allowing sea level to rise another 3 to 6 feet immediately, the report said. Such a major temblor occurred 300 years ago, but becomes more likely as time passes”

3 to 6 FEET!

tra

June 23, 2012 at 12:01 am

Houses that are right at the edges of bluffs may have great views of the setting sun over the ocean, but those kinds of properties may not turn out to be such a great long-term investment:

Seaside cliffs will be cut back about 30 yards over the next 100 years, and sand dunes will be driven back even more, said Robert A. Dalrymple, a professor of civil engineering at Johns Hopkins University and chairman of the group that wrote the report.

And it turns out that failing to remove the dams on the Klamath River could have a major effect on the ability of coastal wetlands to survive sea level rise:

After about 50 years, coastal wetlands will eventually be overwhelmed without new sources of sand or room to move inland.
That could be problematic in Northern California, though, since dams hold back about a third of the sand that once washed into the sea there from the Klamath River, the report noted.

If you mean George Bush increased the debt held by the public from $3.5 trillion to nearly $6 trillion and rose gross federal debt from $5.6 trillion to nearly $10 trillion, and consequently crippled politicians’ ability, or at least willingness, to respond to emergencies within our own borders, you’re right, it is his fault!

ForestToDesert

June 23, 2012 at 7:07 am

I’ve an idea, let’s strip the vegetation off
of our coastline, see if we can’t speed this disaster up a bit.
We’ll call it ‘restoration.’

Festered

June 23, 2012 at 7:08 am

Nobody REALLY seems to believe this as far as I can tell.They’re all speeding past me on the highway at 80mph+,burning as much fossil fuels as possible.A high number of them are driving pig rigs.

High Finance

June 23, 2012 at 7:19 am

We’re all going to die !!!!

Mitch

June 23, 2012 at 7:31 am

High Finance may be sleeping in this morning, so allow me…

1) Four inches is nothing compared to the three to six feet of land lowering tra (I mean Heraldo!) points out will occur with a major earthquake in the subduction zone. So it doesn’t really matter.

2) 2030 is a long time away. We may all be dead by then, so there’s little point in worrying about it. In any event, science will find a solution to the problem.

3) When I was growing up, my parents didn’t protect me from global warming, so I don’t see why I should worry about my kids. I bet they’ll be fine. Liberals want to take over my control of my family.

4) The prediction is made by scientists, who are prone to use liberal facts. They cannot be trusted. One of them, somewhere, once, wrote an email thingy calling the anti-global-warming crowd liars who we shouldn’t pay attention to. I’m onto them.

5) This is all still very controversial and there is no consensus about global warming. If it exists, it’s caused mostly by redwoods and cows, not mankind. Why do you people hate cows and redwoods?! Why don’t you listen to the guy from the mining school, instead of politicized liberal scientists and their amen crowd?!

6) Speaking of amen, why do liberals refuse to trust in God? It’s even on the currency! Don’t liberals read? Do you think God’s going to let us all drown? He saved Noah.

7) If the sea does rise by four inches, it’s hardly the big deal that liberals make it out to be. There will be big new industries to raise houses four inches, which is hardly a big deal. There will be new ocean-front property to sell. This is how progress always works.

8) Four inches is less than a third of a foot. I mean, people, come on!

9) As my friend and intellectual colleague is fond of point out, “this is all George Bush’s fault.” Ha ha ha. You people crack me up every time!!

Mitch

June 23, 2012 at 7:31 am

Damn! He beat me to it! The early worm gets the bird.

Bolithio

June 23, 2012 at 7:41 am

“If a major earthquake occurs beneath the Pacific Ocean off Oregon and Washington, in what is known as the Cascadia subduction zone, that would cause the land to drop, allowing sea level to rise another 3 to 6 feet immediately, the report said.

Well, I think thats debatable. How do they know what will happen ‘immediately’ based on a event that happened approximately 300 years ago?

Also, Im pretty sure if the land is ‘dropping’, sea level isnt rising. These forces are independent of each other.

Mitch

June 23, 2012 at 7:42 am

I don’t want to post over this item too quickly, but I know you’ll all be interested in this report about a Wal-Mart supplier. It’s from Fox News. Really. The Latino version, but still Fox News:

The Cape is in a ‘subduction zone’- there is a plate
pushing our continental plate upwards.

Exactly. Tectonic uplift.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 8:31 am

What the study fails to account for is the 7 billiion additional people that will be on the planetby 2100. Each body being 90% water appoximately 17 gallons per person. So the solution to this sea level rise is have more children.

The local rip and tear faction of coastal behavior
used this as logic to tear apart our coastline.
They are still at it.
We are losing life-forms that have not been catalogued,
even our natural-progression natives (contorta, fir…)
are now compromised.

To Mark Lovelace, keep the bull dozers off of our coastline
study The Coastal Act and adhere to it.
Account for the loss of stability, wetlands and wildlife along the peninsula and investigate why it is that we are ignoring
FEMA/NOAA advice.

Dan

June 23, 2012 at 9:10 am

To Mark, continuing,

The “Bowl” needs water now.
It is a ‘resource’ catastrophe about
to morph into a ‘geological’ nightmare.

If we can stabilize that area, we have a chance of
re-introducing wetland function, if it “blows-out”
it will lead to another “fragmentation.”
(See moving sands just north of Sierra Pacific. Swallowed forest
and soon to enter waterway, then onto US #1 soils!)

Direct opposite of stewardship.

Just Watchin

June 23, 2012 at 9:15 am

I googled the Fort Point bay level data, and found that they have reported that the bay level has gone down in the last 30 years. Who do you believe these days?
BTW…..anyone remember back in the 70s when the “experts” were saying that the next Ice Age was “right around the corner”?

Not an Expert

June 23, 2012 at 9:21 am

this part is not accurate: “seismic changes will offer a slight buffer to Humboldt County” because the Humboldt Bay area is subsiding at about the same rate as sea level is rising. So here, effective sea level is about two-fold. The statement is accurate for the Crescent City area.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 9:36 am

tectonic plates dont’ have anything to do with the problem.

I’ve heard from the natives that the small lagoon just south of orick, around which old highway 101 runs, appeared almost overnight, that the natives were witness to it, they have a word or namely description for it which I forget…something to do with the ocean walking over the land and next morning there was no land, but a jetty and the lagoon.

We’re all witnessing what’s happening to the mouth of the mad river, which up until only about six years ago had walkable coast right to the ocean north of it. After the huge 95+mph windstorm that happened around 05, it took less than a year for that whole portion of land to completely disappear, and form the small jetty along which the river now flows north before hitting the ocean. The treeline continues to recede there, and human interests continue to remove trees along that whole stretch of coast. More insanity as usual.

Not at all. I specifically remember seeing an illustration on the front page of a newspaper when I was a kid. It might have been the Orange County Register. It showed the theoretical view of New York and its harbor(s) all locked up in ice. Quite the scare back then for a short time, as I recall.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 10:10 am

HAHAHA!!! Oh man, a genuine LOL to that, 9:44.

Yeah, 9:44, fifty years is a real long time. Wooly mamoths found frozen in solid glacier with fresh flowers in their mouths, that they were in the middle of eating before becoming entombed in ice. Google you some ice storm images.

There is no past model of projection because the environment has never been like it is today, completely wrought with human interference, in many cases beyond repair. Carbon dioxide is cop out reasoning for the problems of the big picture….radioactive and particulate pollution is a problem beyond control. Literally thousands of nuclear explosions larger than hiroshima have been detonated in the upper atmosphere within the last 75 years. Guess who was responsible for those? The extent of that damage alone is going to continue snowballing for eons. There are planets on which the two hemispheres alternate from frozen wastelands to baren deserts depending on the time of day.

There is no sense but to completely overhaul industry as we know it.

Dan

June 23, 2012 at 10:30 am

Just Watchin, ” I googled the Fort Point bay level data, and found that they have reported that the bay level has gone down in the last 30 years.”
??? That’s weird.
Here is a page out of NOAA.

“Sea-level measurements have been collected at Fort Point since before 1900, and these form the longest continuous sea-level record for any site on the west coast of North America. The measurements have been recently compiled in digital form by NOS and analyzed by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists. This analysis found that four major factors influence sea level at Fort Point—daily tides, annual sea-level cycles, a long-term trend of slowly rising sea level, and the occurrence of atmospheric events such as El Niños and La Niñas.”

Dan

June 23, 2012 at 10:39 am

FORT POINT SEA-LEVEL RECORD, shows about
an eight inch RISE since 1900.
The sea-level did not come down-
again just the opposite, what are you watchin, Just Watchin?

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 10:42 am

I’ve watched more movies from the 70’s than any other decade. There are plenty in which the environmental movement is either an element of the story or is mentioned. People have been keen to the state of environmental affairs forever. Keepers of contemporary industry would like for us to forget all that. There definitely was talk of an ice age in the 70’s…I don’t know why somebody would want to believe a website today that says something contrary to what we can all see with our own eyes that was created then. There’s even a jack nicholson movie, maybe five easy pieces, in which somebody says something like “the next ice age is coming, everybody knows it!”…it’s not an element of the story, just an aside a character says.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 11:05 am

whack job conspiracy website disclaiming a predicted ice age reads: To clarify a little: I am interested in “Was an imminent Ice Age predicted in the ’70’s by scientists, in scientific journals?”. That means articles in scientific journals and reputable books.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Are we choosing to believe Al Gore’s army of reputable scientists or George Bush’s army of reputable scientists? It’s beside the point, IMO, because industry obviously needs to seriously scale back.

A safely low estimate of gasoline consumption in the US is 100 billion gallons per year, well over a hundred million gallons of gasoline burned into the atmosphere every single day in this country alone. That’s psycophathic insanity.

Just Watchin

June 23, 2012 at 12:48 pm

Dan……If you read closely, you’ll see that the data is from two different periods, 30 years versus 100 years. I guess it just goes to show that you can manipulate data to fit a theory, and telling people that the ocean is not rising does not have the desired effect of scaring people.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 1:25 pm

A front page article about someone predicting a coming ice age doesn’t equal “experts” claiming an ice age is coming. Experts write peer reviewed articles in science literature which may or may not be accurately reported by MSM journalists. In this case there were no studies published by any experts making that claim and it certainly was never a consensus of the majority of “experts.”

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 1:44 pm

“In this case there were no studies published by any experts making that claim and it certainly was never a consensus of the majority of “experts.”

Which “experts” are you talking about? What type of “consensus” are you talking about? What “consensus” does exist among all the “experts”? For example…just an example of what I mean, not a subject to disect….one doesn’t find many communist publications written by prominent constituents of the united states prior to recent times, they have been erased by history and an aggressive campaign to subvert such information. The degree of information subversion surrounding the environment is even more under wraps, as global industry leaders rely on the status quo.

Watch the following if you have ten minutes to spare…months click by in upper right next to the year. Consider most are larger than hiroshima. Consider about half are in the ocean or upper atmosphere.

Dan

June 23, 2012 at 1:49 pm

“Just Watchin says:
June 23, 2012 at 9:15 am
I googled the Fort Point bay level data, and found that they have reported that the bay level has gone down in the last 30 years.”

1:25 writes: “Experts write peer reviewed articles in science literature which may or may not be accurately reported by MSM journalists. In this case there were no studies published by any experts making that claim and it certainly was never a consensus of the majority of “experts.”

…unless they were not accurately reported by MSM journalists. Or any journalist for that matter. Decades ago, people were talking about the exact changes we’re seeing in the climate right now.

DEATH TO ALL ALBANIANS

June 23, 2012 at 2:32 pm

TIMES SAYS 6 INCHES HERALD SAYS 4 WHO’S LYING ITS ALL A LIE EVERYTHINGS FINE THE FISH LIKE MORE WATER SCIENTISTS CAN CLONE DODO BIRDS BACK AND SMOG IS GOOD EXCEPT ALBANIANS ARE EVIL

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 3:00 pm

1:44, are you trying to imply that there was peer reviewed scientific literature that claimed there an imminent ice age and that those reports have been purged? One article in one news magazine reporting what one supposed expert supposedly thought could possibly happen is not “experts” claiming anything. This is a “big lie” told deliberately to convince uninformed people that scientific studies are no better than wishful thinking at predicting the consequences of our actions, funded by the fossil fuels industry and echoed across the right wing media over and over until it becomes “common knowledge.” You know, like “Obama won’t show his birth certificate,” “Al Gore claimed he invented the internet,” “John Kerry was a cowardly traitor and Dubya a war hero,” “WMD were found in Iraq” and “Iraq was involved in 9/11.”

tra

June 23, 2012 at 4:59 pm

“Which “experts” are you talking about? What type of “consensus” are you talking about? What “consensus” does exist among all the “experts”? ”

“No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.”

That’s right, even the scientific body most closely attached to the petroleum industry has given up on straight-up denial of anthropogenic climate change, and is now only “non-committal.”

It is not surprising that out of the thousands of scientists with relevant expertise who have looked at the available data, there are a few dozen dissenters. In fact it would be shocking if there weren’t.

Is it possible that the tiny minority with the contrarian position is right, and the huge majority is wrong? Sure, it’s possible…but not very likely.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 5:13 pm

I agree with all that, 3pm, and that’s why I can only speculate same as anybody. Disillusion is the norm, why would we be informed of the truth? “Expert” don’t mean sheeit, really.

MAybe I’m confused about what your point is, or maybe you’ve confused what I’ve said, because I agree with you. It was proposed above that nobody was predicting an ice age during the 1970’s…it was a “global cooling” scare same as “global warming” today…but clearly a lot of people were and still are arguing about an impending ice age. And people are arguing the opposite, that the earth is heating up and no more ice and bla bla bla. The climate is clearly warmer, but all things considered it is in line with “expert” scientific reasoning that such things as ice storms will magnify in intensity. bla bla bla etc. What do we not see in the media today about the environment today? What are people of the future going to claim no “experts” of today were saying about the environment? Somebody is lying, I personally have no idea or motivation to do the research in depth. I can only rely on my common sense of it.

It says a lot as well that of all the people reading this thread who were adults during the 1970’s, only fred actually remembers anything about the issue, and a fragment at that. Perfectly convenient, perfectly disillusioned population. Is why it’s all beside the point to me, the people running the show are corrupt from the inside out, their industry is killing us all.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 5:18 pm

…and fyi when I wrote “whack job conspiracy website” I meant it as you suggest…it’s sarcastic and I would have said the same of a website describing the opposite. Before my time and learning, it seems like one of those “the more things change the more they stay the same” things to me. It doesn’t matter how tight somebody’s head is screwed on if for whatever reason they don’t know pertinent information. All beside the point, time for industry overhaul, massive downsizing, very serious focus on restoring the natural environment, zero growth, etc.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 5:39 pm

Look at tra’s post @ 4:59, and not saying anything about tra rather the content. The first “expert” we’re presented with is an internet website called Wikipedea. The proprietors of the website are unquestionably unbias and only print proven fact. Right? Riiiight. Really…really really…people type information into a form field on a computer screen, it regurgitates text in another form field that we are to believe can be trusted without question. How many people would trust the website if it were called “Lies Lies Lies!!!!” and decorated with images of baby rabbits? It’s completely arbitrary. The next “expert” we’re presented with is the american association of petroleum geologists. What if they called themselves “the earth destroyers”? What if they called themselves “oil is love”? Who ARE they? How many coke addicts and child abusers are among them? They clearly were last in line to come to their senses, if “consensus” implies correctness.

…etc etc…wish I could type more, have to go.

tra

June 23, 2012 at 5:42 pm

“…clearly a lot of people were and still are arguing about an impending ice age. And people are arguing the opposite, that the earth is heating up and no more ice and bla bla bla.”

“A lot of people” may have argued about an impending ice age, but that’s not quite the same thing as the overwhelming consensus of scientists who have relevant expertise, and who are telling us that climate change is real, is likely to accelerate, and that human activity is contributing to it.

See my 4:59 comment, and follow the link.

tra

June 23, 2012 at 5:47 pm

5:39,

The wikipedia entry includes footnotes. The footnotes lead to the sources. Follow the footnotes to the sources and then tell me if you can find any instances where the text of the wikipedia article does not reflect what is found in the footnoted sources.

Or just bury your head in the sand and keep pretending that “it’s completely arbitrary.”

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 6:18 pm

tra, what you’re literally telling me to do is use my mouse cursor to click form fields on my computer screen and take the resulting text that appears on my screen to heart. How many crooked individuals were involved in source #32? Why isn’t it written that source #17-G was sponsered by coca cola, and I had to find that out by reading source #24 which contradicts half of what source J-16-Q of subsection L wrote? Did you think about what I wrote?

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 6:20 pm

…and tra, I completely agree that the climate is changing, that humans are responsible, “global warming” is real, etc. My point is, what can YOU REALLY PROVE. You are not talking to anybody, yhou are not focusing any microscopes, you are not mixing ocean samples, you are reading text on your computer screen. And from the look of it, that’s about all you do.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 6:22 pm

…and neither am I. I can only rely on common sense and what I experience of the world around me, same as anybody. To me, it’s obvious people are being disillusioned on purpose.

tra

June 23, 2012 at 6:29 pm

No, what I’m literally telling you to do is follow the footnote to the bottom of the wikipedia article, and click on the link provided, which in many cases takes you directly to the peer-reviewed scientific journal article that backs up the claims being made.

Whether you believe or “take to heart” what the overwhelming majority of scientists who have expertise in a relevant field say they found in their research — well, that’s up to you. If you choose to believe that the hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that back up the scientific consensus on climate change are all fabricated, or all biased, or all erroneous, or whatever, well then you’re free to hold that opinion if you want to…and if so, you’re probably a good recruit for the “birther” movement, too.

You can lead a horse to water, but if he wants to stand there and say “gee, how do I really know it’s water” rather than taking a sip and seeing if it tastes like water, well, that’s up to the horse.

tra

June 23, 2012 at 6:34 pm

Yes, like everyone else, I have to depend on observations and measurements made by scientists to inform my opinion on climate change. So what? You seem to think that’s some kind of original and important point. It isn’t.

I also have to depend on observations and measurements made by scientists to inform my opinion on whether the earth revolves around the sun. Again, so what? If you’re trying to make some kind of relevant point, with all due respect you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.

tra

June 23, 2012 at 6:42 pm

“I completely agree that the climate is changing, that humans are responsible, “global warming” is real, etc. My point is, what can YOU REALLY PROVE. You are not talking to anybody…”

If you already accept that humans are contributing to climate change, then I’m not trying to “prove” anything about climate change to you. In fact I don’t even claim to be able to “prove” anything to the doubters, of which there are a few represented in the comments in this thread. What I AM doing is pointing them towards the reams of documented evidence that is available to anyone with an open mind who is willing to take a look at it.

“I can only rely on common sense and what I experience of the world around me, same as anybody.”

If that was the only thing we could go by, we’d all still believe that the sun revolved around the earth.

jr

June 23, 2012 at 6:55 pm

Assuming that there are peer-reviewed studies on both sides of the climate change issue, how can one determine which is correct?

tra

June 23, 2012 at 7:01 pm

There are very, very few peer-reviewed studies on the climate-change denial side. As I said above, it is of course possible that the tiny group of contrarians are right and the overwhelming majority are wrong…it’s just not very likely.

jr

June 23, 2012 at 7:10 pm

it might be interesting to post links to studies from the denial side to understand their methodology in coming up with the conclusions they do.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 7:11 pm

Denialists fall into three categories… 1) supporters of industries contributing to climate change and/or have a vested interest in the status quo, 2) Christians and other religious fundamentalists convinced their gods will prevent serious harm to the Earth or, worse, believe such harm is necessary as a precursor to their religion’s global snuff fantasy, or 3) nuts who distrust science and are prone to conspiracy theories and superstition to explain things they don’t understand or that they disagree with. There is, of course, overlap between these three categories.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 7:16 pm

nevermind, tra. You totally miss the point, babble on and on about something else and I don’t care to try to be more clear with you. Maybe you work for this website and are trolling. There are plenty of those out there. You are never wrong. Critical thinking just isn’t your thing, that’s my EXPERT opinion.

You write “I also have to depend on observations and measurements made by scientists to inform my opinion on whether the earth revolves around the sun. Again, so what? “”…

That has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make. The sun comes up over there, and sets over there…that much I can tell you for certain. No googlepedia necessary.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 7:21 pm

“There are very, very few peer-reviewed studies on the climate-change denial side.”

The opposite was true up until about ten years ago. That was the reality we were all living in: not denial of the truth, but a different truth altogether. The climate has been changing all along. Today, the truth is different than it was yesterday. 1984, more than a metaphore.

jr

June 23, 2012 at 7:39 pm

Of course, I can go all metaphysical and state that there is no truth, only perceptions of what one thinks is true, even with peer-reviewed scientific studies.

tra

June 23, 2012 at 8:36 pm

“it might be interesting to post links to studies from the denial side to understand their methodology in coming up with the conclusions they do.”

Well here’s a list of some scientists who dissent, to one degree or another, with the consensus view. Some of these are scientists with expertise in fields that are clearly relevant to the study of climate, while others seem to be working outside the field in which they were originally trained (not that this is necessarily a problem, so long as the data and methodology used are sound). In some cases, there are footnotes leading to source documents.

In my view, there is absolutely nothing wrong with dissenting from mainstream views and pursuing research that aims to disprove the scientific consensus, as long as the researcher is not “putting their thumb on the scale” so to speak.

But in making decisions about whether climate change is happening, to what degree it is caused by human activity, and what its effects might be, it seems to me that it only makes sense to go with the preponderance of the evidence available. And at the moment, the preponderance of evidence is showing global warming is happening, that human activity is contributing to it (and if nothing is changed this contribution will continue to grow), and that there are likely to be some very significant effects, including the one that is the original subject of this blog post: global sea level rise.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 9:19 pm

There are very few, if any, climate scientists who believe anthropomorphic climate change is not occurring. Most of the “dissent” is over how drastic the consequences will be and / or whether we should focus resources on reducing green house gases or mitigation of the problems which result.

High Finance

June 23, 2012 at 10:43 pm

Alarmists are always coming up with something new that will kill us all in a couple of years.

Whether its AIDS, Global Warming or Global Cooling, ALAR, global starvation, Nuclear War, 2012 or El Nino, silly people want to make a buck or get their 15 minutes of fame by declaring the end of the world.

Then you can bank on politicians who want to use the latest fad to increase the power of government over our lives.

You can also bank on blogs like Heraldo to spread the panic message.

Anonymous

June 23, 2012 at 11:05 pm

While there’s some truth to that, I’m a bit puzzled that you included AIDS in the list. For one thing, I never heard anyone say that AIDS was the “end of the world,” just that it was a really nasty, deadly disease. Which it was (and for those who can’t get the medication needed to survive it, it still is).

I’m glad people sounded the “alarm,” because when I first heard about AIDS, what I heard was that only junkies and gay people got it. When it turned out that lots of other people were getting it, too, I started taking precautions. Those “alarmists” who informed the rest of us that straight people and non-drug-users were getting AIDS, too, saved many millions of lives.

When people successfully sound the alarm about a real problem, and as a result of that folks start looking for solutions, and finding and implementing them, sometimes the problem can be solved, or at least ameliorated. Then we can have fun looking back and calling them “alarmists.” It’s called a self-abnegating prophecy, the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If we slow our output of greenhouse gasses and the effects of global warming turn out to be less severe than expected, and as a result of that my children and grandchildren live better lives in a safer world, I won’t mind at all if they laugh about what an “alarmist” old coot I was back in the day.

High Finance

June 24, 2012 at 7:01 am

Were you around in the early 80’s when AIDS first hit the media ?

Mitch

June 24, 2012 at 7:26 am

Anonymous 5:13 wrote:

Somebody is lying, I personally have no idea or motivation to do the research in depth. I can only rely on my common sense of it.

I think his or her comment about sums up what’s happened to our world.

I guess it’s not a conspiracy, but it might as well be. There’s been an ongoing effort over the past thirty or forty years (perhaps longer) to delegitimize science as it is used to provide a factual basis for policy. That’s a shame.

I’m in my mid-50s. Tra, I remember the new ice age warnings. They were real. I don’t think there was any suggestion that it would result from human activity, but I could be wrong about that. They were early results from climate scientists who were discovering that assumptions about the climate being stable were wrong. If I’m remembering correctly, they don’t conflict at all with what’s been discovered since — that mankind’s activities are leading to the heating of the planet at unprecedented levels.

When I was in my 20s, science was generally well-respected. We all laughed at the few scientists who had obviously been bought off by various industry groups to spout the industry’s party line. What’s happened since is not that more scientists lie (though who knows about that) but that the industries that hire the lying scientists realized that in order to support their side, they had to push the point that both sides lie equally. That’s not true, but it’s an approach that has worked spectacularly well.

What I’ve seen over my lifetime is the effects of bigness on people’s values and ability to trust others. (I’d say capitalism and not bigness, but the examples of so-called communist societies that have the same problems are too glaring to ignore. Some western European democracies seem to have found a good mix of socialism and free enterprise, but they are probably special cases that will prove very, very difficult to replicate in countries like the US.)

With bigness comes power and money. The power and money attract people for whom personal power and personal money are more important than the well-being of others. The result, without strong and consistent regulation of such people, is highly destructive. The calamity is that our system now allows such people to buy control of the political process, dismantle regulation, and delegitimize the regulators. In many cases, the regulators have aided this process by behaving without common sense.

In part, people’s response to this process has been to recognize that authority is probably lying. That poses an enormous problem to the subsets of society that work to make truthful statements, because how do you convince people that you are trying to tell the truth as you know it when the examples of people who lie in daily life are so plentiful?

I’m not talking only about the flat-out liars, the Nixons and the Edwards. I’m talking about a whole society that realizes that the advertising and “news” we see on the tube is so lacking in truth that a popular form of comedy has been to parody each. Think about how corrosive that is over long periods of time. Think about what the Catholic church’s toleration of child molesters means for trusting authority.

(For that matter, what does it mean when the vow to live together for a lifetime is broken by the majority of those who give it? If you want to worry about the future of marriage, don’t look at gay folks.)

We are in the first decades of a new political system almost entirely based on lying to the public, and no one can know how it will play out. I’m not optimistic.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 7:56 am

Well said, Mitch. I’m not optimistic either, but those who are pulling the pendulum to the extremes should be aware that there is always a backlash and it is usually proportional to the extremes in the other direction.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 10:05 am

“I guess it’s not a conspiracy, but it might as well be.”

What you describe is the RESULT of the conspiracy. Industry leaders, holding hands with government, have conspired to subvert information and misinform the public about climage change to maintain disillusion. I believe you’ve read about many instances in which they’ve been caught, consider what they’re getting away with not telling us right now. It is “conspiracy” in its most concrete definition of the word. If you’re in your 50s as you say, it’s been going on longer than you’ve been alive. Didn’t hear much about climate change when you were a kid, right? Gross industry pollution has increased exponentially since then, right? Sprawl is still common practice, and definitely was throughout your life. Yet there were plenty of “experts” all over the world attempting to broadcast to the general public, the changes in the climate we’re seeing. Those experts, among others, have been conspired against. Their information has been subverted to maintain the status quo.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 10:22 am

The person who brought up predictions of an Ice Age in the past as a reason not to believe warming now has a fundamental misunderstanding of science.
Science is built on the process of testing ideas and modifying hypotheses based on those results and new data.
So, some scientists during the 1960s-70s proposed a cycling back into an ice age based on a limited data set. However, new data shows that idea was incorrect. Modern climate science and a preponderance of data show a warming trend that can be statistically correlated (at a 95% confidence level) with increases in greenhouse gases.
Using the thoughts of the 1970s as a reason not to believe the science of 2012 is like saying you don’t believe Einstein because Newton said something different about gravity. Or maybe you should not believe quantum mechanics because Aristotle had a different idea about the atom.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 10:34 am

That person gets its misunderstanding of science from the fossil fuel funded right wing echo chamber.

Joel Mielke

June 24, 2012 at 11:02 am

HiFi equates peer-reviewed science with “alarmists coming up with something.”

This is a good representation of the staggering chasm between those who wish to discuss climate change intelligently and mind-numbing drumbeat of the right.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 11:35 am

So Joel, why have you changed your rhetoric from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” ?

Joel Mielke

June 24, 2012 at 11:39 am

I couldn’t care less which term is used.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 11:59 am

Because global warming was too confusing for people like you to understand 11:35.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 12:24 pm

lol @ 11:59. Maybe if the “rhetoric” incorporated the word “freedom”, people like 11:35 might at least feel the need to “regain control of the word” for use with their own rhetoric. Climate change? Too much to handle for some folks, too pessimistic, how about “The Neverending Drought of Ultimate Freedom.”

Mitch

June 24, 2012 at 12:32 pm

No Planet Left Behind.

Mitch

June 24, 2012 at 12:45 pm

Anonymous 10:05,

“Those experts, among others, have been conspired against. “

Well, perhaps in a very broad sense of the term.

But I think mostly those experts have faced the difficult problem faced by anyone who is trying to tell the greedy anything that will cost them money, or by anyone who is trying to tell the lazy and comfortable that they will have to change and may need to become less comfortable. And unfortunately, to some extent, that’s each and every one of us.

Of course, some people are more in denial than others, and some people are way more responsible for the problems than others. Typical Americans, for example, are more responsible than typical Argentinians. And the wealthiest 0.01% of Americans are more responsible than the rest.

One flaw I see on the left is an insistence that there are particular people who must be replaced to bring change about. It doesn’t work that way. Societies need to change, and the political leaders change once the societies have changed (sometimes after a painful lag).

If we all saw the top 0.01% with the appropriate level of visceral disgust, and acted upon it, different political leaders would emerge and be elected.

Where to you get this information from, ….tra ? Everything i read says 6 inches .
Although the 6 inches expected for California by 2030 seem minor, the report estimated that sea levels there will be an average of 3 feet higher by 2100. About 72 percent of the state’s coast is covered by sandy cliffs, and the rest include beaches, sand dunes, bays and estuaries

Dan

June 24, 2012 at 1:15 pm

In Denmark, for decades now, they brag about preparing for
sea-level rise
by planting sea grasses that lock sand.
In Humboldt, we do just the opposite.
We literally have no plan.

And here’s one excerpt on how earthquake-related subsidence might affect us:

Great Earthquakes Along the Cascadia Subduction Zone
Measurements of current deformation and geologic records (e.g., Savage et al., 1981; Atwater, 1987; Nelson et al., 1996; Atwater and Hemphill-Haley, 1997) establish the potential for great (magnitude greater than 8) megathrust earthquakes and catastrophic tsunamis along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. In Washington and Oregon, a great earthquake would cause some areas to immediately subside and sea level to suddenly rise perhaps by more than 1 m. This earthquake-induced rise in sea level would be in addition to the relative sea-level rise projected above. A great earthquake also would produce large postseismic vertical land motions in the area for years to decades. Sudden subsidence during great earthquakes is revealed in the geological record as abrupt changes in sedimentary sequences (Nelson, 2007). When a great earthquake occurs, salt marsh or terrestrial soils are lowered into the intertidal zone, killing the vegetation (e.g., Figure 5.14). These peaty soils are quickly covered by tsunami-deposited sand or muddy tidal sediments. In the decades after an earthquake, the coast slowly rises, producing a gradual transition back to a salt marsh or terrestrial soil (e.g., Nelson et al., 1996; Leonard et al., 2010).

Cycles of buried peat-mud couplets beneath coastal marshes (Figure 5.15) suggest that 6 to 12 great earthquakes have occurred at irregular intervals ranging from a few hundred years to 1,000 years along the central Cascadia margin over the past 6,000 years (Long and Shennan,
1998). Geologic evidence also has been found for six great earthquakes along the northern Oregon coast in the past 3,000 years (Darienzo and Peterson, 1995), 11 or 12 great earthquakes in southern Oregon in the past 7,000 years (Kelsey et al., 2002; Witter et al., 2003), and seven
great earthquakes in southwest Washington in the past 3,500 years (Atwater and HemphillHaley, 1997). Turbidite deposits identified in marine cores suggest that 18 great earthquakes ruptured at least the northern two-thirds of the Cascadia margin during the Holocene (Goldfinger
et al., 2003, 2008).

The last great earthquake on the Cascadia megathrust occurred on January 26, 1700 (Satake et al., 1996, 2003). The date of the earthquake was determined by radiocarbon dating of suddenly buried marsh herbs, tree-ring records of trees stressed by coastal flooding during subsidence
(e.g., Yamaguchi et al., 1997), and Japanese historical records of a tsunami from a distant source. Modeling of the tsunami waveform (Satake et al., 1996) and estimates of coastal subsidence based on detailed microfossil studies (Hawkes et al., 2011) suggest an earthquake magnitude of 8.8 to 9.2. The coastal subsidence and associated sea-level rise were spatially variable, with the largest rise in sea level (1–2 m) occurring in northern Oregon and southern Washington, where
the plate boundary forms a wide, shallow arch (Leonard et al., 2004, 2010; Hawkes et al., 2011). Other sections of the margin subsided <1 m and the southernmost part of the subduction zone was uplifted (Leonard et al., 2004, 2010; Hawkes et al., 2011).

Dan

June 24, 2012 at 3:39 pm

Mitch, were you aware that west of Manila
we had a primary-dune structure 30 foot
tall, eighth a mile wide, and miles long, vegetated and
thriving. Had.
An excellent obstacle in case of seismic event,
or sea-level rise.
In violation of our Negative Declaration to an EIR,
NOAA, ESHA, and all reason-
Manila stripped their primary dunes.
And now? Our wetland system is collapsing and
we’ve begun a wasting process.
Is this Humboldt’s sea-level rise preparation?

The question is why is this going un-reported?

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 3:41 pm

jesus mitch, I’m afraid to ask what it would take to make you see something as a conspiracy. Sounds like you won’t see it unless it’s been declared by the very conspirators. And watch out, you’re blaming the victim.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 3:57 pm

“Typical Americans, for example, are more responsible (for the problem) than typical Argentinians.”

Nonsense. I was born sucking the gasoline tit, weren’t you? Born addicted to electricity as well. I can only change so much of my daily life, how about you? You’ve written that you’ve made $80k in a year, are you even more to blame than me because I’ve never even made a quarter of that in a year AND consume less than you? Do you feel some kind of societal guilt about your lifestyle? Do you see cellular telephones and computers all over the place? igadgetry and video games? Brand new cars with simple engines instead of computerized monsters of industry that get the same mileage as efficient carbureted engines made 30 years ago…why is useless, pollutive crap like that all our society has to show for its progress? Instead of spending trillions of dollars on “defense”…missile testing, building new weapons, etc…that money could be used to compensate industry transition.

You and I and our neighbors are not to blame. As you climb the pyramid of power, the circle of affiliation gets smaller and smaller. There are decisive groups beyond our influence who have conspired against the general population of this planet to accomodate their own agenda. It’s a no brainer.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 4:01 pm

“Brand new cars with simple engines instead of computerized monsters of industry that get the same mileage as efficient carbureted engines made 30 years ago”

…reading my own post, this is what happens why I try to type faster than I think. I hope you understand what is meant, that new car engines are gross monstrosities that never should have smoked up the planet by the very process of their creation. There were plenty of simple cars that got over 30mpg that industrially cost far less, especially in terms of industry waste, than the freshly manufactured future pieces of junk driving around all over the place today.

Mitch

June 24, 2012 at 4:48 pm

Well, Anon, I grew up in New York and mostly used the subway. I didn’t get a car (a then twenty year old Toyota I called my Corroda) until I was out of college. I only got the full gas addiction when I moved out here.

You and I and our neighbors are not to blame. As you climb the pyramid of power, the circle of affiliation gets smaller and smaller.

To some extent, it’s true that much of the decision-making is done by people who are not “you and I and our neighbors.” But I fully believe that until we learn to change our own behaviors, things will not change.

There are many small things that “you and I and our neighbors” can do — when we see 1/3 to 2/3 of us beginning to take them seriously, that will be the change that will enable political change.

The simple-minded example I like to use is driving more slowly to increase gas mileage. When I see someone who wants to change the world but is unable to make this lifestyle change because they need to get where they’re going fast, I realize we’re a long way off from real change. Dropping speeds to 55 would reduce gas usage by something like 10%, and would have an enormous impact on the United States’ military policies. It just doesn’t seem very heroic, and you can’t do it by telling someone else to change their way of life.

This sort of big small change has happened with recycling. But recycling is the exception.

Mitch

June 24, 2012 at 4:50 pm

Incidentally, the switch from banks to credit unions is another good example of big small change. So far, I think it’s the best thing to have come out of the Occupy movement.

jr

June 24, 2012 at 5:06 pm

There is a term called the “hundredth monkey syndrome” which basically says that societal behavior changes don’t really take root until such changes are adopted by a hundred monkeys.

Mitch

June 24, 2012 at 5:12 pm

If that were true, Humboldt would already be nirvana.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

A-nony-mouse

June 24, 2012 at 7:44 pm

There is an interesting theory, as yet unproven, that increasing ocean temperatures could disrupt the Gulf Stream which brings warmer water up the East coast. If the current were to stop flowing, very cold temperatures could result . Check the latitudes of New York and compare them with very cold (no warm current) areas on the west coast od Asia (Alutians, Korea, etc). That’s probably were the ‘ice age’ theory came from. If those cold temps returned to the East, increased snowfall would reflect more sunlight and could, presumably, snowball into an ice age. Interesting theory. Care to test it?

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 11:12 pm

mitch, you’re a complacent fogey.

Anonymous

June 24, 2012 at 11:27 pm

Disasters are inevitable.

One day, when we elect enough actual leaders who are more concerned with the public interest than the interests of their developer-contributors, they will finally fund simple evacuation plans. One year of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce’s public subsidies ought to be enough for a plan to make each Eureka community aware of what to do and where to go!

They can paste it on the back of the new 8″X11″ water bill, made larger to reflect the skyrocketing rates needed to pay Bill Barnum’s long-delayed easement for those long-delayed sewer pipes needed to address Cutten’s sprawl….30 years ago.

Ponder z

June 25, 2012 at 6:44 am

Anon 11:27 please explain. I dont think you know what you are talking about.

Anonymous

June 25, 2012 at 7:15 am

Not just the east coast, A-nony-mouse, Ireland, Britain and the north western coast of Europe are also warmed by the gulf stream and will be much much colder in the winter as the gulf stream slows and / or stops. Of course, other regions will get hotter, possibly to the degree that photosynthesis stops, the crops wither and die with resulting widespread famine. Gated communities with private police forces aren’t going to be any more protection to hoarders than the palace guards were at Versailles.

Dan

June 25, 2012 at 7:46 am

Anonymous says:
June 24, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Disasters are inevitable.

Correct. That doesn’t mean that one strips
vegetation off of the shoreline, (disaster will happen anyway)
It is the reasoning
that disallows such ignorant behavior.

SOmewhat HUMan

June 25, 2012 at 11:57 pm

Great. More wetlands for the fishies and birdies, and lizards and stuff. Frankly, I’m more worried about my birthplace, NYC. Al Gore said that mid-town Manhattan would be underwater by 2020. That means there are only seven and a half years left to eat a real, New York hot dog, in Times Square. Damn. I think it’s WalMart’s fault, the bastards. Oh, and those bridges on the Klamath? The massive weight of those things are sinking the earth, for God’s sake. Will we never learn? I’ve got a plan though, I’m buying beachfront property on the Arctic Ocean. In a few years it will be a tropical paradise. I’ll make a killing renting cottages, beach chairs, and umbrellas to greedy capitalists. That’ll show ’em.

Clowns to the left of me, clowns to the right….

Feh

June 26, 2012 at 12:04 pm

The clown is in the mirror, dork.

Anonymous

June 26, 2012 at 12:18 pm

“Gated communities with private police forces aren’t going to be any more protection to hoarders than the palace guards were at Versailles.”

If it buys them a few extra moments of life…they’ll continue self-destructive behavior. We are 100% dependent on a sustainable environment of clean air, water and food.

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…”.

Anonymous

June 26, 2012 at 12:19 pm

Ponder z says:
June 25, 2012 at 6:44 am

“Anon 11:27 please explain.”

OK.

Questions are meaningless when unspecific.

Jon Brooks

June 26, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Interesting. I’ve done a few appraisals recently of real estate that is protected by levees, i.e., good candidates for trouble as ocean levels rise. So far, nobody has even raised the issue in their thought process for buying or selling or owning such property. Which suggests a few possibilities to me. First, that until it actually happens and people can see firsthand the impact, it isn’t being taken very seriously. Second, the gradual nature of change may make that change harder for most of us to detect, so we ignore it. Finally, maybe 4″ isn’t enough to register as a problem. My 2cents. I’m done with lunch, now back to work.

Mitch

June 26, 2012 at 2:05 pm

That is interesting, Jon.

I don’t know what the State of California is doing in terms of planning, but New York State is taking it seriously: